Better known these days under the moniker Lisa Prank, Robin Edwards has longstanding connections to Denver’s art and music communities. Edwards, a former Westword contributor, grew up in Colorado, and while still in high school, she got involved in the local underground scene. Before becoming a musician, she was a…
When you live in Los Angeles, you don’t really think about music scenes anywhere else. Why would you? L.A. has it all. Sure, you might occasionally give a passing nod to cool shit going on in other places. Kudos to Seattle for that grunge run way back when. And, yeah,…
This past weekend, ARISE Music Festival called many like-minded, earth-conscious individuals to Sunrise Ranch for a music, art and yoga festival just outside Loveland. Ziggy Marley, Jurassic 5, Hard Working Americans, Rising Appalachia, Papadosio and Elephant Revival were among the headliners. Opportunities for internships and volunteer shifts were available and allowed…
It’s hard to put ARISE Music Festival, in Loveland, in a certain category. It features music, but it’s not just a music festival. Aerial yogis perform, and specialists in aromatherapy hold workshops. There are fire twirlers and classes on different global music genres. Oh, and bands like Ziggy Marley and…
It’s Sunday, August 7, the third afternoon of the inaugural Vertex Festival in Buena Vista, Colorado. Inside the festival grounds, a blow-up couch adorned with bikini-clad ladies floats around a pond, bumping into oversized inflatable swans, unicorns and dragons. In the middle of the water is an island where about…
Jackson, Wyoming, is a strange town. It contains only 10,000 or so residents, and is surrounded by wilderness for hours in any direction. But the little spot, known for some of the best skiing and mountain views in the country, has allowed a certain kind of resident and culture to…
Winter is coming to Denver and so is a brand new Game of Thrones concert experience. Thanks to the show’s creator D.B. Weiss and Live Nation, Denver will be one of the twenty-eight cities to be treated to an immersive concert event that covers the shows six-season plot with a live…
Marilyn Manson has been keeping sets short on his current tour, which he’s co-headlining with Slipknot, and the performance at the Pepsi Center on Sunday, August 7, was no different. Even at eleven songs, the Manson set felt like it passed all too quickly. This despite set and costume changes…
Every year, Denver delivers up worthy new bands in various genres, or non-genres, and this past year has been especially rich in that regard. In a future list, perhaps we can include artists like Born Dumb, Herse, Jimmy V, Julien, Bag, Total Goth, Silver Face, eHpH, Never Kenezzard and PterrorFractyl,…
Editor’s Note: Trawling the Small Print is a new feature wherein we squint hard at big festival lineups and spotlight a few gems that may have been hidden below the headliners. The Rocky Mountain Folks Festival has existed for a quarter of a century,; in that time, it has survived…
Flogging Molly and Trampled by Turtles are at Red Rocks this week, and Eric Church will be at the venue for a two-night stand; Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas are at the Pepsi Center, Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd are at Fiddler’s Green, and Norah Jones is the Ellie Caulkins Opera…
As today, the day Frank Ocean fans have been waiting for since 2012, winds down, we can only focus on one sad fact: Ocean’s new album still hasn’t arrived. Despite all of the hype this week, we knew this was going to happen. In fact, we didn’t even get excited…
Frank Turner, who joins Flogging Molly at Red Rocks on Monday, August 8, doesn’t hide his feelings — and that makes some people uncomfortable. Over the course of his prolific solo career, launched after a memorable stint as lead vocalist for the incendiary act Million Dead, Turner has established himself…
Festival season is in full swing this weekend with Vertex, featuring Alabama Shakes, Odezsa, Trey Anastasio Band, Duke Dumont and more, Telluride Jazz Festival and ARISE Music Festival. This weekend’s line-up also includes Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Of Mice and Men at the Pepsi Center, Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy…
Hey, we all pay our taxes, right? Some of that money goes toward the upkeep of city facilities like libraries and museums, so in a way, we pay for music without knowing it, because many of those places host musical events and/or have music to borrow. If you haven’t already,…
Since 1994 Michael Franti has been best known for his band Spearhead, a funk and soul outfit with lyrics that commented on social issues with an uncommon level of sensitivity and a measured critique. Prior to that, Franti had been the main vocalist in industrial rap acts the Beatnigs and…
Though South Broadway was teeming with hundreds of fest-goers last Friday evening — it was day two of the sweet-sixteen edition of the Underground Music Showcase — it was still easy to spot my friends in Tacocat. Like shiny pastel buoys bobbing among a sea of beards and black clothes,…
While there a ton of bands playing at this year’s Riot Fest there are several official after-shows that were just announced, including the Aquabats, Against Me!, Lagwagon, Thursday, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Pouya and more. Tickets go on sale on Friday, August 5 at 10 a.m. Widespread Panic…
“I’ll be playing some new stuff, if that’s okay with y’all,” John Paul White told his audience at the Bluebird last night. Enthusiastic cheers and applause rippled through the crowd, indicating they too were ready to look beyond White’s past achievements. White, half of Grammy-winning duo the Civil Wars, has…
It’s been ten years since James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem graced the hallowed annals of Red Rocks, but last night, after the first performance of their sold-out two-night stay, it was like they never left. They never seem to do that, do they? A band that started as a lark…
After the big ol’ hoo-ha that Bassnectar caused at Red Rocks last year, you would think that every booking agent, venue manager, city official and their dogs would be prepared for the deep, bassy rumblings that the DJ and producer Lorin Ashton creates. Last September, Bassnectar performed at Red Rocks…
In 1996, Robbie Fulks and Bloodshot Records weren’t the oddest couple in the underground music scene, but they weren’t exactly a natural pair, either. Based in Chicago, Bloodshot was establishing its reputation as a hotspot for what it called “insurgent country,” putting out breakneck punk-meets-twang records by bands like the…
